Wolf Blitzer is going to feature TV Marti in his show, The Situation Room, this evening (Monday, Aug. 6).
Their INTRO:
"Twenty millions dollars a year of your money on a TV station that few people can see. So why does the government keep pouring money into it? Monday, 7 ET."
MIAMI -- (AP) -- Ten months ago, the U.S. government launched a new effort to beam TV broadcasts into Cuba via a Gulf Stream jet, an end-run around the communist government's close grip on the island's media.
A U.S. State Department draft report circulated last month called the jet "a best practice'' to beat the Cubans' jamming efforts and said the $10 million (euro7.3 million) startup cost was "a big investment but appears to be paying off," with viewership on the rise. Watching American TV broadcasts is
illegal in Cuba.
But more than two dozen Cuban immigrants who recently arrived in Florida paint a very different picture. In interviews with The Associated Press, they said while the U.S. government's Radio Marti is heard throughout the island, TV Marti can rarely be seen. The TV operation costs U.S. taxpayers more than $20 million (euro14.6 million) a year.
For the public official whose portfolio includes fighting poverty, there are many opportunities for innovative approaches to giving people a leg up. But using one's position to help finance an ex-spouse's hiring and salary with federal-tax dollars is not among them. Yet this was the approach taken by Miami Community Development Director Barbara Gomez, according to a Miami Herald investigative report. If Ms. Gomez hasn't resigned already, then she should be suspended and considered for termination.
Still busy with investigative reporting on the city of Miami's housing agency. Here's the latest report:
The director of Miami's housing agency helped steer more than $1 million in city contracts to two companies that employed one of her ex-husbands, starting weeks after his 2004 release from federal prison, where he served time for smuggling liquid cocaine, The Miami Herald has found.
Miami Community Development Director Barbara Gomez's department provided money to a troubled for-profit caterer and a tiny nonprofit social services agency that both employed ex-husband Ruben A. Santana.
From this year's New Times, Best of Miami:
Best Commie Agent
Oscar Corral
That damn Oscar Corral. First he writes a story informing Miami residents that ten South Florida journalists are on the payrolls of U.S. propaganda vehicles Radio and TV Martí. Then he has the nerve to tell us that none of the $55.5 million in taxpayer money intended to fund Cuban dissidents has reached the island in cash. Instead the bulk was spent in Miami and Washington, or on exorbitant bills to ship goods to the island. And then he reports that most of that local spending was done without oversight or competitive bidding, and that the goods purchased for anti-Castro activists to foster democracy included Nintendo Game Boys, a chainsaw, Sony Playstations, cashmere sweaters, a mountain bike, Godiva chocolates, and crabmeat. He may have been leaking fecal matter and stuffed with tubes, but there was only one man behind this, and he wears an Adidas track jacket and has a beard. Thank God for the freelance columnist at El Nuevo Herald, Nicolas Perez Diaz-Arguelles, who finally put two and two together and took the leap of faith to insinuate what was on all of our minds: Oscar Corral is a Cuban spy. The writer's editor may have cried "blood libel," but when it comes down to it, newspapers are irrelevant to a democracy. Eating truffles while playing Grand Theft Auto That's a slap in Castro's face.
Miguel and Gerardo Gomez window-shopped in Little Havana dressed exactly the same -- Cuban identical twins separated by 14 years of exile and reunited a little more than a week ago.
Their casual jaunt at Flagler boutiques Thursday framed the best and worst that Cubans have to face under U.S. immigration policy. Their unique immigration status, defined by the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act but punctuated by family separation and yet an easy path to citizenship, can give Cuban Americans a different perspective on the issue.
The well-known website, cubaencuentro.com interviews Joe Garcia in Spanish: "Garcia represents for some the great white hope of a civilized Cuban left, uncompromised and increasingly realist in that the ghosts of the past don't hover over his head. A left without a past to shy away from."
Garcia will also appear on Polos Opuestos with Maria Elvira Salazar sometime this week (Mega TV Channel 22) in a debate with Frank Calzon, head of the Center for a Free Cuba. Stay tuned for an update.
Fascinating multimedia presentation about what's going on in Cuba politically, economically and on a human level.
Will one of Miami's most complex infrastructure projects ever disintegrate in the minefield of exile politics?
Cigar Aficionado Magazine dedicates its June issue to Cuba, "the forbidden fruit of travel."
"Although the political debate rages on over relations between Cuba and United States and getting there seems to be more difficult than ever, there is promise in recent happenings and the hope for a better tomorrow."
"In the June issue, Cigar Aficionado magazine delves into the island nation from all angles. We sit down with top U.S. politicans, both Democrat and Republican, as well as government insiders, from Cuba and the United States, to examine the policy divide that splits Washington along party lines and two nations separated by a 90-mile stretch of sea."
Five months ago, singer Issac Delgado, one of Cuba's biggest salsa stars, walked across the U.S.-Mexico border into Laredo, Texas, bringing with him only his family, his talent and his reputation.
But the boy received a less-than-warm welcome from his still-seething father, who turned him away at the front door as a news crew from WLTV-Univisión 23 captured the confrontation.
Barely a ghost of the warrior of lore who once plotted against Cuban leader Fidel Castro, a rumpled and jail-worn Luis Posada Carriles shuffled off a private jet at Miami International Airport Thursday and for the first time savored life outside the shadows of his militant past.
Well, almost. Under 24-hour house arrest and soon to be fitted with an ankle bracelet for monitoring, Posada must remain at his wife's West Kendall apartment until his trial in May.
It's a place where he has never lived -- a cookie-cutter development on a man-made lake far removed from exotic locales across the Americas he used as bases to plot against Cuba's communist government: Panama; Guatemala; Honduras; Venezuela; Aruba. The former CIA operative, 79, is now living with a wife separated from him for more than 30 years in a city that hasn't been home since the Nixon years.
Congratulations to friend and colleague Debbie Cenziper for winning a Pulitzer prize for her investigative reporting of corruption in Miami-Dade's housing agency. Her House of Lies series has led to major changes at the agency and criminal charges against several developers. Congrats!
Adolfo Franco, who recently announced his resignation from the United States Agency for International Development, is coming to Miami to speak at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies. During Franco's tenure at USAID, UM's ICCAS was one of the biggest recipients of government funding from USAID to promote democracy in Cuba.
Franco announced his resignation as assistant administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean earlier this year, just a couple of months after a critical audit of the Cuba program by the congressional Government Accountability Audit; a Miami Herald series also outlined problems with the program's oversight and effectiveness.
David Mutchler, the man who ran the Cuba program since 1998, also announced his resignation lately, saying he will leave the post this summer.
To replace Franco, the White House has nominated Paul J. Bonicelli, the current deputy administrator for the bureau of Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance at USAID.
Franco will speak Monday, April 9 at 7 p.m.
Here's how ICCAS describes Franco:
"The Honorable Adolfo Franco, before joining USAID in 2002, served as counsel to the majority on the House International Relations Committee. From 1999 to 2000, he was president of the Inter-American Foundation (IAF), an independent government agency dedicated to the promotion of grassroots development throughout the Western Hemisphere. In the early 1980s, he was an associate in the law firms of Cole & Corette in Washington, D.C., and Shughart, Thompson and Kilroy in Kansas City, Mo. Born in Cardenas, Cuba, Franco has a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in history from the University of Northern Iowa and a law degree from Creighton University School of Law, where he was on the Creighton Law Review and graduated cum laude."
"Taleb's daughter, Bentaleb, 27, spent 13 years in Cuba, from 1988 to 2001. When Taleb went to Cuba to try to get her back in 1999, he was turned around at the airport and immediately deported. Bentaleb eventually made it back to her family. But Taleb's son was shipped to Cuba's Isle of Youth in 2001, and has had no communication with his father since, Taleb said in 2005."
Ever heard of the Polisario Front? Did you know that Cuba has circulated thousands of soldiers and advisors through an obscure region of North Africa for decades?
I had no idea about this until 2005, when a group of Moroccans traveled to Miami to shed light on it. I covered the event for the Herald, and plan to roll out a few previously unpublished photos and tidbits on this blog. Now that UM is trying to link Cuba with Al Qaeda through their Polisario connection, I thought it would be a good time to revisit the story of some of the victims.
The U.S. travel ban to Cuba incites passions at both ends of South Florida's political spectrum. But having U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake, who hard-line exiles consider an adversary, sitting on a stage in the heart of Little Havana Saturday marked a first.
Flake, a libertarian Republican from Arizona who has traveled to Cuba four times and has pushed Congress for years to end the travel ban, took part in a debate over the travel ban Saturday at the Tower Theater. He sought to make a case that banning travel to the communist island is counterproductive and against America's democratic ideals.
Florida International University professor and Cuba scholar Lisandro Pérez echoed the argument, asking what had four decades of a trade embargo accomplished.
Two prominent Cuban Americans -- radio host and University of Miami professor Paul Crespo and Hialeah City Council President Esteban Bovo -- countered that opening Cuba to American tourists and allowing Cuban Americans to visit family on the island more often than once every three years would only strengthen Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl's control.
Coming Saturday: A public debate. On travel to Cuba. In Little Havana.
In Miami, where progress is too often measured by the teaspoon, the ACLU-sponsored debate seems nearly revolutionary.
Four men (and it's a pity they couldn't get at least one woman) will discuss the ban at the Tower Theater: U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake from Arizona; Florida Rep. David Rivera; political analyst Paul Crespo; and Florida International University professor Lisandro Perez.
El Comite Cubano por La Democracia (Cuban Committee for Democracy), will present U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), with the group's Juan Gualberto Gomez Award. The group will present the award to Flake at a lunch/fundraiser Saturday at Garcia's Restaurant.
The announcement was made by Miami lawyer Alfredo Duran, who is part of the group.
Mitt Romney's gaffe on Cuba made the Boston Herald's front page:
http://news.bostonherald.com/galleries/?title=PrintEditionNews
FROM U.S. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's office:
Washington, DC ---- Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, along with her South Florida colleagues Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart will host a press conference this upcoming Sunday, March 25th at 1:30 PM at Ros-Lehtinen's Miami office with Scott Carmichael, author of "True Believer," which details the investigation and capture of Cuban spy Ana Belen Montes, former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) analyst.
Ms. Montes is serving a long prison sentence for her role as a Cuban spy inside the DIA who caused incalculable damage to our Latin American intelligence networks.
WHO: Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Congressmen Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart as well as Scott Carmichael, author of "True Believer," book on the investigation and capture of Cuban spy Ana Belen Montes.
WHEN: Sunday, March 25, 2007 at 1:30 PM
WHERE: Ros-Lehtinen's Miami office, located at 8660 West Flagler Street, Suite 131, Miami.
Agustín Tamargo, the gravelly voiced, fast-talking Spanish-language radio commentator known for his passionate and insightful analysis of local politics, Cuba and Fidel Castro, died last night of a heart attack. He was 82.
It's not everyday POTUS honors a Cuban exile's passing:
STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT
Cuban patriot Mario Chanes de Armas was a political prisoner of the Castro regime for 30 years, one of the longest sentences of any political prisoner in the world. Like so many Cubans, he sought a democratic Cuban society only to see his quest betrayed by a Castro dictatorship. Mario Chanes was one of the original plantados, Cuban political prisoners who were unyielding in their fervent desire for a free Cuba. His patriotism and strong sense of purpose are examples to all freedom-loving people. Laura joins me in sending our thoughts and prayers to his family and friends.
Santamarina plans to begin monthly tertulias cubanas or talk sessions -- an old Spanish tradition -- at her coffeehouse so that people who disagree with U.S. policy toward Cuba can share their feelings with those who would never stray from the status quo. The first one is Sunday.
In any other city, an open talk about Cuba policy might not be a big deal. But in Miami, where thousands know of someone who was a political prisoner in Cuba or who died trying to flee the communist government, talk of softening U.S. policy toward Cuba is not always met kindly. It has drawn condemnation from talk radio, street protests and even violent attacks in the decades past.
"My parents didn't sacrifice themselves and come to this country so we would stay quiet and be afraid to speak out, " Santamarina said. "Everyone says things need to change in Cuba, and that's true. But they also need to change in Miami. There's a culture of intimidation in Miami that doesn't allow people to criticize U.S. policy toward Cuba. I'm not going to let that go on."
With its own timbiriche window serving crispy croquetas and cortaditos with evaporated milk, Tinta reflects the anti-Versailles of exile thought. An art book featuring Ernesto "Che" Guevara on the cover sits on a book shelf -- placed there by Santamarina to provoke conversation -- and the Cuban hip-hop sound of Orishas thump from speakers. Couches and threads of conversations critical of U.S. policy toward Cuba greet people as they enter.
"Miami is at a tipping point, " Santamarina said on a recent afternoon as she tackled a plate with a plantain leaf-wrapped tamal, manchego cheese and arugula. "I feel that we need to give a voice to the silent majority of people in Miami who are frustrated with the failures of U.S. Cuba policy."
Santamarina and her friend, anti-embargo exile activist Sylvia Wilhelm, each invited ten people to Sunday's tertulia and asked them to bring someone who disagrees with them on U.S. Cuba policy.
Outside the famous Versailles Restaurant on Southwest Eighth Street, Miami's best-known tertulia on the Cuba issue thrives daily. Near the timbiriche that fronts Calle Ocho, casual groups form in the sparse shade of palms, always coming around to the topic percolating in Miami's collective consciousness for two generations.
On Wednesday, former political prisoner Dagoberto Venturita, 72, wandered into a conversation about the U.S. embargo of Cuba. He thinks Santamarina's tertulia plays into the hands of Cuba's ailing leader, Fidel Castro.
"Those people, that's leftism, " Venturita said. "Why do they come to this country if [the United States] is a democracy. Everyone has a right to talk, but there are a lot of sentiments and feelings in this community against their position."
Cuban American lawyer Raúl Hernández-Morales, chatting in a group of three outside Versailles, snickered at the concept of a tertulia to discuss the U.S. embargo: "What embargo? The embargo hasn't accomplished anything. The embargo has been an excuse for all of Fidel's tyranny."
Santamarina believes recent changes in the leadership both in Cuba and Washington are cause to reexamine the strained U.S.-Cuba relationship. Fidel Castro's brother Raúl now runs Cuba, and Democrats, including many who want an opening with Cuba, now control Congress.
"You know what, I'm not a commie, so get over it, " Santamarina said of those who disagree with her. "We have to get beyond those ridiculous insults and talk this out. Lots of us feel that the best way to bring about change in Cuba is to increase contact."
Earlier this month, Santamarina hosted a photo exhibit on the second floor of the building that houses Tinta, the Jóse Martí Building, known for amural of the island on a wall that can be seen from I-95. The exhibit was critical of U.S. policy that prohibits Cubans in the United States from visiting family on the island more than once every three years.
An awkward confrontation punctuated the night.
Alvaro Fernandez, chairman of the Cuban American Commission for Family Rights, which aims to end restrictions on family travel, unveiled the exhibit. He said the photos captured "some of the pain experienced by families who can't see each other just because of a policy, " a woman in the small crowd interrupted.
"Excuse me, didn't we all know that we were going to be separated?" she said. "I don't understand your attitude, I'm sorry."
Fernandez asked her to reserve her comments until he was finished. But the woman interrupted again.
"President Bush didn't divide us, " she said. "Fidel is the one that divided us. He kept us from going for 25 years."
As the visibly upset woman left the building, she declined to provide her name to a Miami Herald reporter, saying the people giving the presentation were "cabrones" (bastards) and "asesinos" (assassins).
"They are just saying half the truth, " she said. "I came here in 1962 and for 20 years, I couldn't go to Cuba and there was no Bush. It was Fidel's decision to prohibit us."
Santamarina, who also is a real estate investor, was not dismayed. In a way, the confrontation represented the kind of discussion she wants to promote -- but without raised voices, insults or hurt feelings.
"Let's stop talking like that, " she said. "It's not about attacking someone. We have to stop the fights. To quote a T-shirt my friend was wearing the other day, what we need is dissent without fear."
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/16762967.htm
BY FRANCES ROBLES
CNN's Rick Sanchez -- of Miami WSVN fame -- got a proposal of a lifetime Sunday from Oscar-winning Hollywood hottie Charlize Theron.
During an interview to discuss her new documentary about Cuban rappers, East of Havana, the South African actor looked right at the camera and said: ``I want to make out with you right now.''
See the video:
Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron has stepped from in front of the camera to behind it, reports ABC News.
Her first documentary, East of Havana, which hit select theaters Friday, focuses on the men and women of Cuba, their music, their life, and their quest for social justice.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/people/16618321.htm
Miami Mayor Manny Diaz issued this news release Friday:
Re the Jan. 29 story, “When Castro dies, the party's on:” Every government contingency plan has always contemplated the Orange Bowl, along with other large sites, as a gathering place for overflow crowds, mainly for the public safety of all involved.
This idea of a ''party'' was hatched by a city commissioner. My office never was consulted and was not in support of this idea. In fact, I have not and will not appoint anyone to serve on the planning committee.
On the day Fidel Castro dies, my thoughts and prayers will be with the families of those he executed, those who died in the straits seeking freedom, the families he separated and the hundreds of political prisoners and dissidents still on the island.
While Castro's death will bring feelings of hope, relief and pleasure to many of us, it is only after a full transition to democracy occurs that meaningful change for the Cuban people will take place. Our ultimate desire is for the people of Cuba to enjoy the rights and liberties held by democratic countries everywhere. It is on that day, when Cubans can finally enjoy freedom and democracy, that we will all have cause to celebrate.
MANNY DIAZ, mayor, Miami
from Herald Reporter Michael Vasquez:
One day, very possibly one day soon, ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro will die -- and a nascent committee sponsored by the city of Miami wants to be ready.
So it's planning a party.
The event, still in the very early planning stage, would be held in Little Havana's Orange Bowl stadium -- and might include commemorative T-shirts, a catchy slogan and bands that will make your hips shake.
The stadium is a bittersweet landmark in South Florida's Cuban-American experience. After the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco, more than 35,000 exiles gathered there to hear President John F. Kennedy promise a free Cuba.
Decades later, the bowl served as a camp for Mariel refugees.
City Commissioner Tomás Regalado, a Cuban American, came up with the idea of using the venue for an event timed to Castro's demise.
Lexington Institute's imagined farewell letter from Fidel to Bush:
Thank You and Farewell
The Council of State Havana,
Cuba December 2006
The Honorable George W. Bush
The White House Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. President: My final battle is nearing its end.
I have led the revolutionary struggle for so long that I have seen nine American Presidents leave office. But now it is certain that you will be the one who sees me give up my post in favor of my brother Raul, whom history commands to lead our noble Revolution and pass the torch to our next generation.
Before I relinquish my post, I must thank you for the steadfast political support you have provided for six years.
Mr. President, I have had lots of time recently to think about history. I conclude after careful analysis that not since President Kennedy has an American President done as much as you to help sustain our revolutionary project.
When President Kennedy decided to invade Cuba in 1961, it was not self-evident that we would emerge strengthened from the experience. The Revolution was young and vulnerable. We were fighting to cleanse our mountains of bandits and counterrevolutionaries. We had no allies to help us resist a full application of American military power.
But Mr. Kennedy chose to rely on Cuban mercenaries. He landed them at the Bay of Pigs, separated from the rest of Cuba by vast swamps and far from any conceivable source of support. He left them defenseless. Soon they surrendered in humiliation, and our moment of peril was shortlived.
Victory reaffirmed my personal leadership at home and throughout the Americas. But what mattered most was that President Kennedy's decision allowed me henceforth to paint internal opponents of the Revolution as instruments of U.S. imperialism. My pledge to safeguard Cuban independence was no longer a reference to history; it was the Revolution's response to an immediate threat. I made sure that this message was never lost on the Cuban people.
I do not wish to inject myself into your country's political affairs, Mr. President, but something else was truly remarkable about President Kennedy's conduct. After shamefully abandoning those men on the field of battle, he went to the Orange Bowl in Miami to bask in the applause of the survivors and their families. He accepted their flag and promised to return it "in a free Havana." It did not matter, apparently, that his strong intentions were paired with weak measures and terrible results. Results were not required to win the support of those Cubans among you who live in hatred of me. I believe that you have taken this lesson to heart.
John Stewart weighs in on reports that Castro has an artificial anus:
Stewart concludes: "I don't feel bad for that dude. He's not a nice man. He deserves, I think, the artificial anus that he got."
SEE VIDEO:
Ricardo Rodriguez sampled the bittersweet taste of free speech this week, as he sat in his classroom at Belen Jesuit Preparatory School in Miami and watched a Channel One news segment, which featured a Cuban high school girl defending Ernesto ''Che'' Guevara and the Cuban revolution.
As a Cuban American whose grandfather had a business confiscated by Cuba's communist government in the early days of Fidel Castro's revolution, Ricardo wasn't happy listening to someone rave about the system that he abhors.
But he and 7 million other students in the United States sat through a four-day series this week about Cuba, its youth and the dark side of the Cuban revolution. The series is part of a John S. and James L. Knight Foundation-sponsored campaign on how the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment -- which protects freedom of speech, press and religion, and the right to assemble and petition the government -- affects teenagers.
CHECK OUT ARTICLE AND VIDEO:
Andy Gomez left Cuba at the age of five, in 1961, three days before the Bay of Pigs invasion that failed to unseat Fidel Castro. Like many of the 700,000 Cubans in Miami-Dade county, Gomez still speaks English with a Cuban accent, and like most of them he has prospered in the US. He earned degrees from Harvard, raised children, grew a distinguished moustache, and became the University of Miami's foremost expert on Cuba.
His office is housed in the Casa Bacardi, a building sponsored by the Cuban rum family, on the university's sunny campus. In one corridor hang photographs of the family home in Havana, taken by Gomez on a working visit to Cuba. You can see sewage running on the street outside. "If my parents saw it they would be really disappointed," says Gomez.
The house is now inhabited by a government official's family, but Gomez's father still keeps the deed in a safe in his bedroom in Miami. That was the dream of exiled Cubans - el exilio - here: to reclaim lost Havana. But Gomez says it will never happen. "Dad turns 80. It's very sad. My brother and I were talking about the deed yesterday. What is it worth? Nothing."
While Fidel Castro, also recently 80, is ailing or dying, the exiles are giving up their old dreams. Most know they will never again live on the island 90 miles across the Florida straits, not even if it goes democratic after Castro's death.
The traditional image of the exile - an angry former plutocrat, armed, and obsessed with Fidel - is out of date. Most exiles now accept that their decades of fist-waving at Castro - the Bay of Pigs, countless attempts to assassinate him, the American economic embargo - achieved nothing. Before illness forced Castro to hand over to his brother Raul last July, he had become the world's longest-lasting leader. "No Fidel, no problem," bumper stickers in Miami once said, but most exiles now realise that Cuban communism might outlive him.
http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto011920071140291379&page=1
I've been getting phone calls from national and international media outlets looking for insight into Miami's Cuban exile community and the situation on the island. I'd like to pose a question to readers: how do you want Miami's exile community to be portrayed by the media this time around?
What would you say to reporters who ask you what the mood is like in Miami over Fidel's illness and the future of Cuba?
MADRID, Spain - Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro has had at least three failed operations and complications from an intestinal infection and faces "a very grave prognosis," a Spanish newspaper reported Tuesday.
A Cuban diplomat in Madrid said the reports were lies and declined to comment.
Judging by the emails I've received over the last several months, the comments section of this blog is a critical part of its success. This blog was always intended to promote discussion and debate over an issue that affects Miami deeply -- the Cuba issue.
I've always believed that what I think and how I feel about issues is no more important than how you, our readers, feel and think. Until detractors tried to destroy the blog by posting obscene and even potentially libelous things, the comments section was one of the most vibrant forums available to discuss the Cuba issue on an ongoing basis.
We have decided to restore open commenting because we recognize that this blog is not serving readers properly if they are not allowed to voice their opinions freely. For those of you who have stuck around, I thank you and hope you continue to make this blog an adventurous place to opine. For those of you who have left, I ask you to return to the arguments you so aptly engaged in before.
MIAMI — It's a little after 5 p.m. and the shadows from the palm trees along Calle Ocho, Eighth Street, are starting to lengthen. Cars are double-parked outside Tinta y Cafe, Neli Santamarina's little Cuban restaurant at the mouth of Little Havana.
The place is new and modern, mostly metal and glass, but it smells like a Cuban grandma's kitchen.
Santamarina, a raven-haired Cuban-American, 52, mingles and kisses the regulars hello. Hello to the balsero, the Cuban at the bar who floated over on a raft. Hello to the Argentinian, to the Spaniard ordering espresso.
This, she said, is the "new Miami," an increasingly diverse, rapidly changing city. A growing number of artists, intellectuals and liberal-leaning activists who stream into her cafe want Miami's hard-line stance toward Cuba to change, too.
But that may not happen soon.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/4453697.html
MESSAGES OF HOPE AND DEMOCRACY FOR CUBA
OUR OPINION: CREDIBLE EFFORTS BY RADIO, TV MARTI TO WIDEN AUDIENCE
Recent experiments by Radio and TV Martí in buying time on two Miami stations are credible efforts to deliver information to audiences in Cuba. These attempts, however, must prove to be: 1) cost effective and 2) within the bounds of a U.S. anti-propaganda law.
The issue is not about Radio and TV Martí's mission. We fully support the goal of providing independent news and information to the Cuban people, who have been bombarded with only the Cuban regime's message via state-controlled media for 48 years.
Cuba jams signals
To achieve their goal, the Martís' programming must be balanced, engaging and widely accessible in Cuba. This is no easy task. Since Radio Martí began broadcasting in 1985, followed by TV Martí in 1990, both have been subjected to aggressive jamming by Cuba. Still, Radio Martí's broadcasts to Cuba can be heard in much of Cuba, while the TV shows are seen only in certain areas, mostly outside Havana. Audience polls are unreliable in Cuba, where repression is relentless, and people are reluctant to admit using an illegal medium. Even so, at least 100,000 Cubans are thought to hear Radio Martí weekly. Fewer Cubans seem to view TV Martí.
The Martís aim to expand their Cuban audience by buying limited air time on Radio Mambí 710 AM and WMFP-TV 38, which can be seen in Cuba via satellite dishes that appear to have mushroomed in Havana and elsewhere. One hitch is that Miami audiences can tune in to the programs, too. U.S. law generally bars domestic consumption of U.S. government broadcasts aimed at foreign audiences. The danger is that such broadcasts could disseminate propaganda to U.S. audiences.
Legal transmissions
However, provisions in Radio Martí statutes allow transmissions through domestic stations when needed to thwart jamming. Curiously, TV Martí provisions don't include the same exemption, but allow broadcasts when domestic ``dissemination is inadvertent.''
Some critics say that these local transmissions violate the spirit of the law. The Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees the Martís, and Congress must ensure that the transmissions are legal. The Martís must provide fair and objective programming, and their operations should be free of patronage and partisanship. For the experiment with Miami stations to succeed, they must be cost effective and expand the Martís' reach. Ideally, the TV transmission would be a viable alternative to expensive broadcasting via U.S. airplane flights.
The Cuban people are starved for credible information that isn't filtered by the regime. A window to the outside world, the Martís offer hope and a sliver of democracy to people trapped in a totalitarian society.
From the Chicago Tribune: Saturday, Dec. 23
SORRY MARTIS, NOBODY'S LISTENING
The most popular sitcom on the world's least-watched TV station is "La Oficina del Jefe" ("The Boss' Office"), brought to you by U.S. taxpayers. The show is a satire about life in a fictional government office run by a bearded leader who dresses just like Fidel Castro.
It may be a real thigh-slapper in the Miami studio where it's filmed, but the show isn't widely seen by its intended audience in Cuba. That's because the real Fidel has been jamming the signal ever since TV Marti launched in 1990.
Last year, only one out of 1,000 Cubans reported seeing TV Marti within the previous week, and eight out of 1,000 had watched in the previous year, according to a U.S. government survey. Only 1.2 percent of the Cuban market tuned in at least weekly to its counterpart, Radio Marti.
Those aren't exactly boffo Sweeps Week ratings, but that hasn't stopped the U.S. government from sinking more than $530 million into the Martis over the last 21 years.
Congress established the stations, named after the Cuban revolutionary poet Jose Marti, "to promote the cause of freedom in Cuba" by providing alternative voices to Cuba's state-controlled media. U.S. guidelines say the programming must be objective, accurate and balanced. Yet a review this year by the federal International Broadcasting Bureau found an anti-Castro bias and a reluctance to air news that reflects badly on the administration that sponsors the shows or the Cuban exiles who produce them.
The broadcasts have done little to hurt Castro or to help the U.S. cause, probably because Cubans don't find it worth the effort to tune in. With the television signal scrambled, TV Marti can be viewed only by those with Internet access or a satellite dish--both rare on the island. Radio Marti is best heard on shortwave radio.
For their $530 million, U.S. taxpayers have little to show but a nest of patronage jobs in Miami, another bone tossed to the anti-Castro crowd that means so much on Election Day in Florida.
A better way to expose Cubans to the delights of a free society would be to lift the restrictions that keep Americans from traveling to Cuba and spending money there. Instead, the Bush administration is throwing even more money at Radio and TV Marti as part of a broader effort to empower the dissidents that it hopes will push for political change in the coming months. With Castro rumored near death, the reasoning goes, it's time to turn up the volume.
There's only one problem: Nobody's listening.
From the South Florida Sun Sentinel: December 22, 2006
ISSUE: A new channel for TV Martí.
Life moves forward, but when it comes to Cuba policy, the Bush administration keeps backpedaling toward the past.
Fidel Castro remains seriously ill, and his brother, Raúl, is in charge of the regime. If there has ever been a time for measures to prod the long-desired transition to democracy on the island, this is it.
But, more than four months after the stunning news out of Havana about Fidel Castro's condition, the best U.S. policymakers can come up with are meager, retro steps. The latest reinvention of the anti-Castro wheel is a deal to air TV Martí programs on a Spanish-language TV and radio station in Miami in hopes of back-dooring the broadcasts into Cuba.
That's it. That's the best the Bush administration can do in the face of a historic opportunity? Never mind that airing government propaganda on domestic outlets violates the spirit, if not the letter, of U.S. law.
The sad, larger message here is that those wanting change in Cuba policy must look elsewhere for leadership.
Perhaps it will come from a bipartisan congressional delegation that visited Cuba earlier this month. The group says it will push to rescind rules restricting travel by Cuban-Americans to the island and limiting their ability to aid loved ones in Cuba by sending them money.
Those steps would certainly be welcome. The draconian limits, imposed two years ago, only hurt Cuban-Americans and their loved ones back on the island.
The tough love approach was meant to weaken the Castro government. However, even after Fidel fell ill, his brother was able to take over the reins of power.
It's obvious that Washington needs to come up with a more creative and bolder long-term plan. The wait-and-see approach in place now is far too passive.
BOTTOM LINE: Enough with retread ideas. A bolder, creative policy is needed.
A Florida International University professor and his wife are expected to plead guilty on Tuesday to new charges that replace an indictment that had accused them of being unregistered Cuban agents, according to several sources familiar with the deal.
Longtime FIU academic Carlos Alvarez, 61, held in federal custody for almost one year, has agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to be an unregistered agent for the communist government of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, sources said.
Miami newspaper's handling of journalists with links to Marti shows 2 worldviews
By Andrew Zajac
Tribune national correspondent
Published December 14, 2006
MIAMI -- El Nuevo Herald, a Spanish-language newspaper published by the Miami Herald Media Co., triggered a community-wide furor in September when it fired two reporters and severed ties with a freelance writer for working part time for U.S. government-run Radio and TV Marti.
The journalists eventually were reinstated, but the dismissals and their aftermath laid bare a cultural dissonance between how journalism works in the U.S. and how some journalists from Latin America perceive their roles.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0612140144dec14,1,5857923.story
Sunday, Nov. 19, 2006
There's Trouble--Lots Of It--in Paradise
Restless locals call Miami a corrupt, exorbitant mess, and many are leaving
Jewelry, an actress once said, takes people's minds off your wrinkles. So too has Miami's necklace of pearl beaches and aventurine waters long distracted residents from the city's notorious imperfections. Crime and corruption were a small price to pay, people told themselves, for an otherwise affordable existence so near paradise.
That logic may no longer apply. Crime is down, but the city's old dysfunctions have been joined by acute new economic pressures on Miami's middle class and retirees. Now that the city's jagged growth spurt is showing signs of sputtering, regular Miamians are taking stock of their new city: traffic jams, half-built high rises, struggling schools. And more than ever, they are voting with their flip-flops. They're leaving town.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1561128,00.html
From the Herald's Frances Robles:
Four of Cuba's most prominent dissident groups are calling on the Bush administration to lift at least some restrictions on travel to the island and direct U.S. aid to pro-democracy groups there, saying the restrictions ''in no way help'' their struggle.
The dissidents' statement was intended to support the Miami organizations that handle some of the U.S. aid but wound up causing a stir, particularly among hard-line exile groups that support the travel restrictions. It also raised a question of whether the administration would still push its plan for an extra $80 million to aid an opposition that disagrees with its principal policies.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/front/16111512.htm
From the Herald's Carol Marbin Miller and Elinor Brecher:
Friday morning, El Nuevo Herald freelance cartoonist José Varela called his brother-in-law and said: ``Take care of my kids. Don't let them watch TV today.''
Varela -- dressed in a black FBI polo shirt and concealing what turned out to be a toy machine gun -- spoke to a Miami Herald Media Co. security guard, then headed up to El Nuevo Herald's sixth-floor newsroom, where he barricaded himself for 3 ½ hours in the office of El Nuevo Herald Executive Editor Humberto Castelló before surrendering to police.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/16093774.htm
For more:
A federal grand jury indicted a senior TV Martí executive, accusing him of taking more than $100,000 in kickbacks from a company that was doing business with the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which oversees the Martí operation, prosecutors said Friday.
Jose M. Miranda, nicknamed ''Chema,'' received the money from Perfect Image Film and Video Productions, a vendor that was doing business with TV Martí, according to a federal statement.
On September 8, The Miami Herald published an article“10 Miami journalists take U.S. pay” that purported to break the news of local journalists being paid by Radio Marti. But several days earlier, Reinaldo Taladrid, a commentator on Mesa Redonda, the Cuban government’s prime time political TV show, had spoken briefly of the Herald’s investigation.
How was this possible? A Castro agent at One Herald Plaza?
No. Taladrid had simply cited an article that was on the August 22 edition of the Miami-based Web site www.radio-miami.com. The article, signed “El Duende” (The Goblin), referred to “a rumor in journalistic circles” about “an open investigation of some colleagues in Miami” who work for private media companies and Radio and TV Marti.” It noted that working for both “is considered a conflict of interest as well as a flagrant violation of journalistic ethics.”
The man responsible for the article is journalist Max Lesnik, the 75-year-old director of Radio-Miami, who writes and delivers on-air commentaries as himself and, in a dis-guised, slow-motion voice, as El Duende on WOCN (1450 AM). “Information arrived at the El Duende Section from a certain journalist who learned that the Herald was doing that investigation,” Lesnik says. He declined to identify his source, but said it was not Herald reporter Oscar Corral, who wrote the explosive September 8 article.
“I think [El Duende] circulates inside Cuba a lot,” Lesnik offers, noting that he knows many journalists in Miami and Havana, including Taladrid and the rest of the Mesa Redonda TV show cast. A Havana-based reporter for the government-run Cuban newspaper Granma, speaking confidentially, confirmed that Taladrid had taken the item from the El Duende section of the Radio-Miami website. — Kirk Nielsen
Excerpt of SPJ statement:
"The South Florida Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is profoundly disturbed by reports that journalists received pay from Voice of America and Radio and TV Martí.
"SPJ believes that “journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public's right to know.” That is set out in our Code of Ethics, which also states that journalists should avoid real or perceived conflicts of interest, and associations or activities that would compromise their integrity or independence.
"These outlets are all United States government agencies that do the bidding and follow the policies of the leaders in power. Journalists’ decisions to accept payment from them runs contrary to the SPJ Code of Ethics, contradicts the standard of independent journalism and undermines the public’s confidence in the credibility of the news media.
"Therefore, the South Florida Pro Chapter of SPJ endorses the decision of the Miami Herald/El Nuevo Herald to fire employees and terminate agreements with freelancers who have been on the payrolls of Radio and TV Martí.
"Journalists in South Florida, and increasingly across the United States, come from countries with stronger traditions of ideological or advocacy journalism than we have in the United States. While we respect other forms of communication, the Society long ago resolved that professionalism requires journalists be autonomous from those in power, especially the government. Moreover, we believe that any ideological perspective taken by a media outlet must be stated openly so that its readers or viewers can better judge the veracity of the information offered..."
Published Sunday in El Nuevo Herald by Pablo Alfonso:
...This infamy that was published against us cannot end here. It requires a public apology from the administration of the Miami Herald Media Company, an editorial decision that makes it very clear, without leaving a doubt, that my credibility, as a journalist, is totally recognized.
However, until just a few hours ago things were not reflected that way. Judging by what has been published, our editorial "house" thinks they are doing us "a great favor," that they are "magnanimous" for letting me return.
It is framed as an "amnesty", a pardon, of a "benevolent" attitude from the company that they rehire me as a "prodigal son" that returns to the network of the family. What family? The one that appears to reject us and treat us as corrupt professionals? Like third of fourth rate journalists? The one that catalogues us as "chihuahuas?"
No, My God! I proceed from another mindset. Without arrogance, but with all the morals that correspond to me for the attitude assumed in carrying out my duty in civics, ethics, as a citizen and democratically, learned from the first years of my primary education and tested during my years in prison and locked up for maintaining my conscience free, I should say:
I believe the Miami Herald Media Company owes us an honorable rectification. It's not about the right of legal claims. Above legality, there are morality and dignity. With those virtues I have been able to, throughout my life, lie my head on my pillow at night without regrets.
Miami Herald Media Company should have sufficient spiritual largesse to recognize in an editorial that the article written against us was "abominable, ugly, and of an incredible lack of depth," recognize in black and white that, if the company accepts our return to work, it's not only because administrative customs and procedures were violated and management errors were made, but because besides that, we are professional, with our reputation and credibility intact. If it were not so, the company would not have accepted our return.
That, which is admitted today in private, I want it recognized publicly. It's not a problem of arrogance. It's that our reputation was tried in the public light and should be justifiably cleared up in the same context.
With that criteria in our minds, in the afternoon hours of Friday, the president and editor of the Miami Herald Media Company, David Landsberg, received us in his office to discuss the topic. My colleague, Wilfredo Cancio, and I, attended. Present in the conversation were [Human Rights Head Elissa] Vanaver and [Miami Herald General Counsel Robert] Beatty.
We accepted the compromise of these executives, their word of honor, that in the coming days those necessary clarifications would be clearly established. They asked us for a few weeks, a vote of confidence. That vote of confidence is granted.
Today I return to work, with my head as high as the day I left; it's not a false pride that sustains it, but the fortitude of truth and of a done duty.
"Patience can accomplish anything," we will be patient in our wait and hope.
http://www.miami.com/mld/elnuevo/news/columnists/pablo_alfonso/15705996.htm
From Today's Miami Herald Story by Christina Hoag:
After a thorough review of federal documents, The Miami Herald found 49 full-time journalists or contributors to local media outlets who also received payments from Radio and TV Martí from October 2001 to August 2006.
They included eight El Nuevo staffers, paid between $125 and $175,000, and 29 freelancers who contribute to El Nuevo. They received between $100 and $110,000 over a five-year period.
Thirteen other journalists at several Miami media, including Channel 41, Diario Las Americas, Univision, Telemundo, Radio Mambi and WQBA, were listed.
Publisher Jesús Díaz Jr. announced his resignation Tuesday. But he actually quit two weeks ago -- about the time of a blow-up over a column by Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen.
Díaz believed Hiaasen's sarcastic essay on the three El Nuevo Herald writers paid by Radio and TV Martí shouldn't run. Hiaasen threatened to quit. Díaz wasn't yielding.
A furious Hiaasen phoned friends close to The Miami Herald's new owner, the McClatchy Co. Within hours, Howard Weaver, McClatchy's top news executive, called The Miami Herald to voice his support for strong columnists in the company's papers.
